Still images are an effective means for describing various subjects. Information about the subject is accumulated in image databases. At the present time a great multitude of types of databases have been developed that are oriented to the applications of special methods of analysis and information processing.
Current digital transmitting systems have a number of advantages for image processing in comparison with analog systems. Recently developed techniques have led to improved methods to reduce image size. Such methods are extremely useful for digital data storing and processing or manipulating. So it may be said that data size reduction is a compression process. As to the architecture, it is possible now to put a complete compression process into a single chip. The main objective of a compression process is to achieve the highest compression ratio and in the same time to provide the minimum data loss that may lead to decompressed image quality degradation.